Roasted vegetables are a simple, delicious healthy dish. Using a mixture of different vegetables (home grown if you can!) will give a good balance of flavours to be eaten on their own or as a side dish.

Prepare butternut squash by chopping off any tough skin. Scrub or peel root vegetables like parsnips. You can also use other vegetables such as carrots, squash, celeriac and sweet potatoes. The more the merrier!

A handy tip – All vegetables roast at differing speeds depending on their water content. To eradicate this being a problem, cut the vegetables at differing sizes to make sure they all cook evenly. Soft vegetables like aubergines cook faster so cut these up larger. Hard vegetables like parsnips take longer to cook so chop up finer, as so on.

Place them as a single layer in a roasting dish. Add a little thyme or rosemary with a good grind of salt and pepper.

For extra flavour, toss in a few cloves of garlic, left whole in their skins, these can be roasted with the vegetables to give them flavour. You can also use them to make a sweet roasted garlic paste to spread on toast or add to dressings, delicious!

Pour on a glug of everyday olive oil and use your hands to make sure that the vegetables are completely coated.

A handy tip if watching the calories – Place all the vegetables into a clean sandwich bag and add a teaspoon of your chosen oil, then shake well. This will coat the pieces evenly still allowing them to crisp.

Root vegetables will cook in 40-50 minutes in a fairly hot oven – 180-200C, or 350-400F.

Soft vegetables like peppers, aubergines, onions and tomatoes roasted at higher temperatures will have lovely charred edges, great to warm your cockles on a cold January evening.